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I have also found it can help to raise the pressure as much as possible w/o n2. I have found leaks more than once on evap. coils on a rack system by putting the case in hot gas defrost and you can sometimes even hear the leak then. It can be a challenge but stick with it!

Tommy knocker, OP and all other members...please forgive me for being so passionate about my opinion. We all know what they say about opinions. In rereading my posts I realize that they may seem argumentative and borderline defamatory. I in no way want to portray this attitude. I fully respect all people who would attempt to make a career of this business. OP-keep at it, you'll get it. Tommy knocker-if you ever find yourself in the Pacific Northwest...e-mail me and I'll buy you a dinner and a drink. Thanks for your understanding,
Helioson

You really hurt my feelings. I like prime rib with a tall cold one!
Hey, I don't rent space in my head to anybody. It's all good brother. Appreciate the sound check though.

Tommy knocker, OP and all other members...please forgive me for being so passionate about my opinion. We all know what they say about opinions. In rereading my posts I realize that they may seem argumentative and borderline defamatory. I in no way want to portray this attitude. I fully respect all people who would attempt to make a career of this business. OP-keep at it, you'll get it. Tommy knocker-if you ever find yourself in the Pacific Northwest...e-mail me and I'll buy you a dinner and a drink. Thanks for your understanding,
Helioson

Nothing to forgive. No matter the route we choose I suspect we end up at the same place most of the time. You know how techs are. We may not always be rite but we are never wrong.

Look for oil, look for oil, look for oil!!! This includes moist looking dirt or dust stuck to some part of the system. Start with a good flashlight and your eyes and brain, spending ample time searching for signs of oil. After that you can go to your truck and get out the electronic and bubbles! Remember that once you start spraying bubble soap, you have lost your opportunity for finding the oil as the bubble soap looks like oil until it dries and disappears! As already stated, you won't always find oil, but with a good eye you can frequently spot some.

Once years ago on an ice machine, I noticed some odd black, dry, chalky residue on the side panel. I took notice of it because I had never seen anything like it before, and so I asked myself, what is that? Where did it come from? How did it get there? The panel had rubbed against the discharge line for years and had finally worn a hole in the tube and caused a leak! Normally a discharge line leak will leave a nice trail of oil, but not that one! Just some wierd chalky stuff! The point is, try to notice everything unusual and then try to figure out what it is and how it got there. Every system you work on, touch and feel and notice everything you can! Especially on properly operating units! You need to know what the compressor, liquid line, drier, suction line and discharge line should feel like on working and malfunctioning units! If you do this you will start to notice patterns and be able to zero in quickly on problems, and eventually it will help you to determine hard to diagnose problems too!
Best of luck to you and welcome to the field!!! If you care and pay attention while working in this field, you will find that you can learn something new almost constantly for many, many years to come!!!

If you reclaimed a full charge prior to sweating a new part in, guess where that leak most likely is? I had an understudy in the Coast Guard that could never get his heart around that one. Here is where I will get serious desent from the other posters here, but I only keep a leak detector around for those costumers who like to see them. I use soap and water to find every single leak I encounter. Back when I was in the service leak detectors served a purpose in detecting which space a leak was on, but on a package unit where all the refrigerant lines are in the same general area, relatively speaking, in my humble opinion, a leak detector is first degree useless. I'm old enough to have used the old halid flame leak detectors, where you watch the flame turn colors.

If you reclaimed a full charge prior to sweating a new part in, guess where that leak most likely is? I had an understudy in the Coast Guard that could never get his heart around that one. Here is where I will get serious desent from the other posters here, but I only keep a leak detector around for those costumers who like to see them. I use soap and water to find every single leak I encounter. Back when I was in the service leak detectors served a purpose in detecting which space a leak was on, but on a package unit where all the refrigerant lines are in the same general area, relatively speaking, in my humble opinion, a leak detector is first degree useless. I'm old enough to have used the old halid flame leak detectors, where you watch the flame turn colors.

I won't disagree completely. I do pinpoint all leaks, that are not obvious or huge, with bubbles. However I do use my ELD to narrow my search and save time. A small leak on a big system can take a long time to find with bubbles. Especially if its a odd ball like the stud on the bottom of an accumulator, almost impossible to find with bubbles alone.

If you reclaimed a full charge prior to sweating a new part in, guess where that leak most likely is? I had an understudy in the Coast Guard that could never get his heart around that one. Here is where I will get serious desent from the other posters here, but I only keep a leak detector around for those costumers who like to see them. I use soap and water to find every single leak I encounter. Back when I was in the service leak detectors served a purpose in detecting which space a leak was on, but on a package unit where all the refrigerant lines are in the same general area, relatively speaking, in my humble opinion, a leak detector is first degree useless. I'm old enough to have used the old halid flame leak detectors, where you watch the flame turn colors.

I am respectfully submitting my dissent.
If it works for you have at 'er but I could buy 3 good electronic leak detectors a year with what that would cost in soap!

If you've ever done supermarket refrigeration you know that an ELD is priceless for walking through the store and sniffing the air discharge curtain on the system with a leak.

I do this as a pre-emptive strike anytime I am at a store and have found leaks before any other indicators such as bubbles in the sight glass or poor performance.
I use ELD, soap, and ultrasonic depending on where the leak is.:beer:

I've done a few convenience stores, and I can see where lines running through multiple spaces could be quicker with an electronic leak detector, yet overall, I don't have enough of those to warrant putting batteries in mine. Like I said in my earlier post, I did use them in the service, where a compressor and condensor could be as far as four decks from the reefer boxes and the lines pass thru many spaces. It did make narrowing the search down to a specific space easier, yet I don't have many units where I work where the lines pass many spaces, a couple split AC's and walkins are about it. Even the walk ins where the condensing unit is on the roof only have two spaces where that leak might be